My good friends from Purdue

I spent the Summer of 2024 in a small town in Indiana killing plants. I worked at Purdue University (Go Boilermakers!) in the plant pathology department. There, I had the pleasure of working in Dr. Anjali Iyer-Pascuzzi’s Lab with my mentor, Abbie. Her lab specializes in characterizing and analyzing Ralstonia solanacearum which is a pathogenic bacterium that causes damage to potatoes, tomatoes, and geraniums. I learned how to do colonization assays, plant infiltrations, and ROS assays to determine how certain effectors within Ralstonia work. Effectors are proteins that are injected into a host organism to create more favorable colonization conditions. My interest in effectors did not end when I returned to Utah.

My lab

The best part about Ralstonia is that, in certain media, it has a Barbie Pink color:

With all that sentimental stuff done, here is the project:

The Project

There are A LOT of different effectors within Ralstonia solanacearum. T